The fall from grace began with Larry Bailey, a retired 27-year veteran of the Navy SEALs who founded the anti-Obama political group Special Operations Speaks. Bailey's military career placed him in a unique position to attack the president, but it didn't take him very long to get off message, as
Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin found out. "I have to admit that I'm a Birther," Bailey told Rogin. "If there were a jury of 12 good men and women and the evidence were placed before them, there would be absolutely no question Barack Obama was not born where he said he was and is not who he says he is." In the interview, he also said Obama was a socialist who was raised by communists, which caught the attention of Obama campaign official Ben LaBolt who gleefully
distributed the article to Washington reporters.